KERRY THARP:  We’re joined by Kyle Busch.  He’s joined by team president J.D. Gibbs and Dave Rogers.  This is Kyle’s first Budweiser Shootout victory.  This is also a big moment for Toyota.  It’s their first Budweiser Shootout victory.  Congratulations to those folks.

This is the closest margin of victory in Budweiser Shootout history .013 seconds.

Kyle, tell us about not only the win but a couple of those saves you made out there tonight that were just incredible.  Talk about your race out there tonight.

KYLE BUSCH:  Man, it was exciting from where I was at a few times certainly.  Can’t say enough about all these guys, bringing out a backup car like that making another fast M&M Camry out of Joe Gibbs Racing, come out here and winning the thing.

First time might have been luck.  I’m going to say the second time was all skill (smiling).  It was interesting from my seat.  I was steering, stabbing, braking, gassing, everything in between, trying to keep the thing straight, get it back under control.

Man, it was a fun race.  I thought a lot about how the pack was back.  There’s certainly some moments when we were all pushing each other.  It’s a tense pack.  It’s not like 2000 to 2005 pack where you couldn’t really bump each other, you couldn’t really get to each other, you were racing around and made holes whenever you could make holes, whatever.

It was intense.  Guys pushing all the time, them pushing on you, pushing five rows deep, everybody squirrelly, the back end of the cars being real light.

It was a great race from my seat, hopefully it was from everybody else’s.

KERRY THARP:  Dave Rogers, talk about the performance of the 18 team out there tonight.  Car got beat on, banged on, spun on.  Just talk about everything y’all were able to accomplish.

DAVE ROGERS:  Yeah, I’m real proud of this race team.  Everybody on the team, spotter up top, all the way to the crew guys on pit road fixing it, and obviously Kyle Busch.  We always give each other credit.  Tonight I think we eliminated who deserves credit.  The thing was wrecked twice and he saved it and still drove it to Victory Lane.

All the guys on this M&M team worked really hard.  This was a backup car, never saw the racetrack until the start of the race.  Started at the very back.  Kyle drove to the front.  Like I said, two amazing saves, some damage at the end.  The guys kept working on it.  They never gave it up.  Put TRD in Victory Lane for the first fuel injection race in NASCAR history, so that’s a good night for us.

KYLE BUSCH:  Good plug for EFI, Dave.

KERRY THARP:  First victory ever with electronic fuel injection.  Thanks for noting that.

J.D., talk about the win.

J.D. GIBBS:  Three times with Kyle in particular, We’re done, that’s it, pack it up.  You come back and say, ‘Hey, we’re still alive.’  I’m going to have to go back and watch that on tape again because you have to evaluate it and realize what it was.

I would say whoever the driver was that could do that, you just need to appreciate it.  I think having it be Kyle and our guy was really impressive.  I think it means a lot for the whole M&M team and our guys, it was special.

KERRY THARP:  We’ll take questions from the floor.

Q.  Kyle, we’re going to talk about the saves.  First off, did you impress yourself with the saves?  Second, considering everything that happened, where does this stack up in all your wins in your NASCAR career?

KYLE BUSCH:  Hard to say whether you impressed yourself.  Never thought about that.  It was certainly cool.  I enjoyed it.  I wouldn’t recommend everybody do it every day.  But certainly it got my attention.

I was just glad that I was able to pull through it, to be honest with you, to be able to straighten it back out, keep going.  Checked my mirror.  Everybody ways stabbing the brakes, trying to slow down, thinking I’m going to wreck.  We get back going, they’re like, huh, all right.

You know, this win certainly ranks up there.  Being knocked around and beat around, almost spun out a couple times, being able to prevail through all that, still come through.  Obviously there were 10 cars at the end of the race, we didn’t have much to pass.  It’s not like the 500 where there still might be 22 are them or something.

It was certainly cool because I was trying to push Newman and hook up with him, then he was hooked up with whoever was in front of him.  I’m like, All right, fine.  The hole opened up behind Stewart.  I ducked in behind there knowing he had a fast car, pushed him.  We got up through there.  He made the way to the outside and everything.  Coming to the line, I’ve been in that situation reverse before with Tony.  Hadn’t ended up so well.  This time it turned out all right.  We made it past him and beat him to the line, so it was cool.

Q.  Kyle, what did it feel like, trying to save it like that?  Even Tony Stewart said it was one of the coolest things he’s seen.

KYLE BUSCH:  Probably because there was a shower of sparks over his windshield.  I don’t know.  Like I said, I was grabbing plenty of steering wheel, throttle, some brake, trying to get the thing calmed back down, not overcorrect it and go back in front of traffic or spin on the apron and back up across the racetrack.

Like I said, I mean, it was a lot going on.  It’s so hard to explain everything you do, but you’re doing it all at the same time.  That’s just the way it is.  Certainly I was like, ‘Man, that was pretty lucky the first time.’  It happened the second time.  I’m like, ‘Well, I guess I’m lucky again.  We’ll see where we end up when the checkered flag flies.’

Q.  How many people in NASCAR could have done that?

KYLE BUSCH:  I don’t know.  Probably a few out there that could do it.  Do you want me to show you (laughter)?  We talking about that Speedo again?  Another story, don’t worry.

J.D. GIBBS:  Thank you.

Q.  I have a question about the save, as well.  What prepares you how to do that?  It’s obviously instinct.  What kind of vehicles or situations makes that instinctual that you’re able to react that way?

KYLE BUSCH:  That’s a good question.  I don’t know exactly what teaches you that.  Certainly running on dirt I think is a lot of that.  How crooked you get cars, whether you’re still driving through the looseness or whether you do have to lift and let the car straighten itself out.  Dirt, late models, modifieds.  Certainly the way I run cars loose, sometimes I get myself in a bad spot and catch it, and sometimes I don’t catch it.  Sometimes I have messed up, gotten too crooked, haven’t been able to hold on.

But stuff like that, like you said, it happened so fast, it’s just instinct that you start grabbing everything you can grab and hoping that the timing is right.  Like I said, if you overcorrect just a little bit, man, you could hook right back to the right and go right up the racetrack.

Q.  First race out of the box, winning, it’s got to give you a little bit of a feeling of redemption.  How do you use tonight as a learning experience for next Thursday and next Sunday?

KYLE BUSCH:  Yeah, it is great that we were able to come out first race back in the M&M car and get back in Victory Lane.  It means a lot to myself and this team, Joe Gibbs Racing.  Can’t say enough about all the support around, M&M being back, us being able to get to Victory Lane like we did, carry that Toyota right through to Victory Lane like we did.

Certainly there’s situations and stuff like that that got really tense out there and really hectic.  You’re not sure how you’re going to come out of it sometimes.  You just do the best you can with what you got going on at that particular moment, try to come through it.

Like I said, sometimes we were pushing three rows deep, I was in the middle, I thought I could spin out on the straightaway.

There’s going to be moments like that in the 500.  There’s going to be more cars.  It’s going to be 50 times more pressure packed at the end of the race like that and more intense because it is the Daytona 500.  There’s going to be guys going for everything that it’s worth.

Q.  Kyle, the wrecks tonight all seemed to be caused by the guy in the back, the guy in the front, the left.  Is there any adjustment that NASCAR can make in the shark fin or is it all up to you?

KYLE BUSCH:  No, it’s all up to us.  I don’t know what caused all of them.  I know what caused both of mine.  I wasn’t clear of Jimmie.  I was trying to get back down the racetrack and clipped him a little bit.  That was one and two.  Three and four with Jeff Gordon behind me, I got him pushing on me through one and two making me really loose.  I’m glad the straightaway came when it did because otherwise I was going to spin out.  He got back on me a few more times on the straightaway moving me around, I think trying to move me out of the way.  Getting into three, hit me again, hit me on the left rear corner, spun me out.  I don’t know what the deal was there.

Obviously we’re trying to win the race, coming down to the end, trying to move me out of the way.  It caused a heck of a melee behind us, and also for himself.  Hopefully everybody is all right through that, through that crash evidently.  It’s a product of what us drivers need to be better at.  We’ve got to fix that.

Q.  Kyle, obviously it’s going to be hard to sustain this kind of racing for 500 miles.  What needs to happen?  Is it going to be more riding around for a while in the 500?

KYLE BUSCH:  Yeah, it will be a little bit calmer.  It’s all in the drivers’ hands, how boring or how exciting we want to make the race.  I think tonight’s was pretty exciting, the reason being because it’s a non-points race.

When you get to the Daytona 500, there’s going to be some moments there where you’re pushing, trying to see what your car is going to do, whatnot.  You have to keep your water temperatures in check, the front and back bumpers on your car, you got to keep the sides on your car, you have to be there at the end.  When it comes down to the last 50 miles, 25 miles, 10 miles, it’s going to get hectic.  We’re probably going to be spinning each other out and hopefully being able to miss it all.

Q.  A lot of drivers said the closing rate was a little bit different tonight.  You also had virtually taken a year off from this style of racing.  With the increased closing rate, being in packs again, was there an adjustment period tonight?  Do you think the mistakes were drivers getting acclimated to pack racing again?

KYLE BUSCH:  Possibly, sure.  But the closing rate is higher.  Like was mentioned before with the old style pack drafting from 2000 to 2005, whatever it was, the closing rate was really slow.  Sometimes you never even got to the car in front of you.  You couldn’t blow through that space of air.

Now you can’t stay off the car in front of you.  You got somebody pushing up your butt, you’re running in the car in front of you.  There was a moment through three and four, I think Montoya was in front of me, somebody in front of him.  Somebody was pushing me, I’m trying to hold on the brakes so I don’t run into the guy in front of me, cause them to get loose.

It’s a product of what the drivers are all faced with and how we can all work through it better.

Q.  Kyle, you went through the anatomy of that save, especially the one off of four.  Can you describe what your field of vision is like when you go into the spin cycle like that.

KYLE BUSCH:  Vision is a big key, too.  It kind of tells you how crooked you are.  Whether you’re 45 degrees, 60 degrees, where you are.  Your field of vision, you’re trying to pay attention out your windshield, out the right side obviously.  Kind of like a dirt car.  When you’re sideways in a dirt car, you’re looking at the right side A post because that’s where you’re going.  You’re not watching the steering wheel, looking at any of that stuff, you’re doing it all by feel.

Where I run my hands on my steering wheel, I can tell, I can put it back straight.  I try not to overcorrect sometimes by doing that.  Just kind of helps that way, too.

Q.  Did you grab the steering wheel tight?

KYLE BUSCH:  No.  Like when you’re wrecking, you’re grabbing a lot of wheel real quick.  When you’re trying to bring it back quick, there’s two spokes where I set my hands.  I know when I set my hands like that, that’s straight.  A lot of guys use the white tape on the steering wheel.  I don’t have that on there.  Just did it by feel.

Q.  Dave, based on everything that you saw tonight and with the car, I know there were some people talking about temps and so forth, if you had to guess, do you expect to see this package change at all between now and when Kyle gets back to racing on Thursday?

DAVE ROGERS:  Yeah, I don’t have any expectations.  I’m sure NASCAR is going to look at it, talk to crew chiefs and drivers, make a good decision for the Thursday races and the 500.

I think NASCAR did a really good job with the rules package.  The goal was to get pack racing back.  We had a more exciting pack than ever tonight.  The temperatures are a concern.  When you’re three-wide, four or five rows deep, we’re running 240 degrees, it’s a night race, it’s cool out.  If the ambient conditions go up during the day, 1:00 race, water temp starts to go up, we could have some engine failures in the 500.  We have to look at that.  If they open up the grill too much, we will go back to the tandem racing.

They did a good job for tonight.  I’m sure they’re going to do a good job for Thursday and Sunday.

Q.  Kyle, aside that it was driver error that caused a lot of the accidents, some people suggested more spoiler would make a difference.  How do you feel about that?

KYLE BUSCH:  Hmm.  I don’t know.  I got to think about that for a minute.

Yeah, spoiler is obviously going to add stability back to the cars a little bit.

DAVE ROGERS:  They can raise the back of the car.  That’s legal.

KYLE BUSCH:  What he means is we run the car minimum height all the way down.  You can raise the back of the car, raise the spoiler to get more downforce.

Adding a bigger spoiler, you’re going to punch a bigger hole in the air, cars will have more drag, you’ll have more grip in the back of the car.  It will make us feel safer to push, which I almost think is the wrong way to go.  Make it so unbearable we can’t touch each other.  That’s more fun.  But they won’t do it.

Q.  Kyle, other than running you up to the wall, was there anything Tony could have done to keep you from passing him coming through here?

KYLE BUSCH:  No.  He knew he was a sitting duck as soon as we got clear of everybody.  It was over.  He knew who the winner was.  I’m trying to think of a better way to explain it.  That’s what it was.

If I would have been in his spot, I would have known, too.  The car behind has the momentum because you’re pushing the car in front.  You can use the side draft and get by him.  The only thing I could have screwed up on is if I would have gone low, and Stewart forced me below the yellow line, I could have gotten posted for that, so it’s a good thing I went high.

Q.  Kyle, with what you saw for 78 laps, did you expect the finish of the race to come down to a two-car tandem as it did?

KYLE BUSCH:  Yes.

Q.  Do you have any idea what your water temperature was on the last lap?

KYLE BUSCH:  Can I tell them?

DAVE ROGERS:  I don’t know what you’re going to tell them (laughter).

KYLE BUSCH:  Yeah, I mean, with a green-white-checkered, it’s going to come down to a tandem.  Same thing for the 500.  If we have a green-white-checkered, it’s going to be a tandem finish.  I predict whoever is in the first two rows is going to win.  I’m lying to you.  First four rows.  There’s going to be eight cars racing for the win, four two-car packs.

Water temp at the end, roughly 300 degrees.

DAVE ROGERS:  Oops.

KERRY THARP:  He said ‘roughly.’

Q.  Until that last big wreck, there was a pretty good chance that your Nationwide Series driver might be in a position to work with you at the end of the race.  How aware were you of how good a job he was doing out there tonight?

KYLE BUSCH:  I was aware.  I was actually trying to figure out where he was on the final restart to see if we couldn’t get hooked up and do something.  Let him do his own deal.  He was too far ahead essentially.

Like I said, when Newman got going on that restart, pushing whoever was in front of me, the 11 got into the 15, got him a little crooked, backed up the inside lane, Stewart was out there on an island.  I was like, Man, I need to get behind Stewart and just push.  Every time I got pushed, seemed like I got pushed the wrong way.  I didn’t want to be the pushee, I wanted to be the pusher.

Q.  Kyle, every year at Daytona we have teams that test the limit of the templates.  This week apparently had one that went over that limit.  You win the race tonight with a car that had a gash in the front end and who knows what other problems.  Does that kind of stuff just not matter in the long run?

KYLE BUSCH:  Well, I mean, essentially I think most everybody here, including us, we’re all trying to get as much as we can for qualifying.  We all want to qualify on the front row for the Daytona 500.  It guarantees you a spot in the field.  Even though the top 35 in owners points are locked in as well, it’s prestige, it’s honor.  You come out beating your chest at the start of the year, you sat on the pole for the Daytona 500.

Everybody is looking for as much as they can get.  Some teams want to push it as hard as they can push it.  Sometimes you don’t quite get through the room of doom.

Q.  A couple years ago the roles were reversed in July, you were in front of Tony, didn’t end up so well for you.  Does it give you a sense of satisfaction to beat him?

KYLE BUSCH:  No, it’s no sense of satisfaction or redemption or anything like that.  It’s us getting in Victory Lane.  That’s what it’s all about.  Whether it was the 22 or the 2 or the 51 or anybody in front of me, I was going to do the same thing to anybody.

Being it was Tony, no.  I mean, he’s one of the best here, always has been.  He probably learned a lot from Sr.  He puts it to use every year.  He’s all but won everything but the Daytona 500.

Hopefully if it comes down to that same thing again, we’ll see what happens.

KERRY THARP:  Kyle, Dave, J.D., congratulations.  Nice show out there tonight.

FastScripts by ASAP Sports

An interview with:

TONY STEWART

MARCOS AMBROSE

KERRY THARP:  Let’s roll into tonight’s post race of the Budweiser Shootout.  We’re joined at the podium by three-time defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Tony Stewart, and our third-place finisher is Marcos Ambrose.

Tony, talk about the way the race unfolded and your thoughts about how things went out there tonight.

TONY STEWART:  We took the first 25-lap segment easy and tried to watch guys, more so pay attention to what they were doing than really what was going on with our car, just kind of watch the trial-and-error process and see what guys could get away with and what they couldn’t, then after the break go back after it.

We got kind of separated at the point that Kyle got sideways.  An unbelievable save, just a great save.  We tried running that pack down.  They had that big wreck in front of us and that got us up to where we needed to be to make a charge at the end.

It was definitely a lot more fun and you felt a lot more eager to be engaged in the race this way than in the two-car deal.  I actually had fun racing at Daytona again which I haven’t had for a while, so I’m really, really appreciative to the work that NASCAR has done in the off-season and the test session and even after the test of the changes that they made to try to make it better for us out there.

I don’t know what the consensus is from everybody else, but I had more fun as a driver tonight than what we’ve had in the past.

KERRY THARP:  Marcos, how about you?

MARCOS AMBROSE:  It was a crazy race, that’s for sure.  I saw pretty much every spin, crash.  I was either in it, around it, or I just dodged it.  Really proud to run fast tonight.  We got a lot of steam under the hood, which is great.  The Ford department has done a wonderful job with the engines.

I agree with the Tony, what an incredible job NASCAR has done to get back to this style of racing.  I think all the drivers appreciate it.  It’s definitely a lot more fun, more entertaining for the fans, and more in control for the drivers.  Even though we crashed more tonight, you just feel like you were in control of your own destiny a little more out there.

Got to thank the King for giving me the chance.  Getting back up in the front is a lot of fun.

KERRY THARP:  We’ll open it up for questions.

Q.  Tony, unless I’m remembering wrong, in years past, the pack racing at Daytona, you weren’t that big a fan about it.  Tonight you’re speaking glowingly of it.  What’s different?

TONY STEWART:  You’re kidding, right?  Do you remember what we did here six months ago?

This is a lot more fun than the two-car stuff was.  I still like the open motor races better where we can literally control our own destiny, but this is by far a lot better than what we had with the two-car stuff.

Q.  Better than the two-by-two but not better than before?

TONY STEWART:  C’mon, work with me, dude.  I’m just happier.

Q.  How much of the style of tonight’s race will be tempered a bit next Sunday?  You have 500 miles, more strategy.  Tonight there was a lot of aggression, shorter race.  How much are you going to sit down and formulate what you can and can’t do?

TONY STEWART:  Historically you’ve always seen this race be a scenario where everybody sees what they can get away with and they use it for a practice session.  You do try to see what you can, get away with what you can.  Everybody, no matter what their outcome was tonight, learned something they’re going to take into the qualifying races and we’ll take into Sunday.

You can always push harder in this race than the 500 because we always run this at night and it’s a lot cooler.  We’ll have most likely a lot warmer conditions a week from tomorrow.  That will eliminate some of the stuff that guys were really trying to push the envelope on.

Q.  Don’t get mad.  It was fun for you, but three cars out of the whole field are the only ones that didn’t sustain damage.  A lot of accidents.  Jeff Gordon ended up on his roof.  It was fun for us to watch when you were battling, but none of us want to see the carnage we saw out there tonight.  What are we expecting for the Daytona 500?  Are you going to temper it back a little bit?  These new rule changes, it’s fun, but how do you think next Sunday is going to be?

TONY STEWART:  Do you have any better ideas?  I think everybody’s always open.  NASCAR asked the teams and the drivers what we could do to make it better.

My point is this is better than having to sit there and stare at the back of a spoiler for 500 miles and not be able to see where you’re going half the race.  We had control of what lane we got to run in.  We got to move whenever we wanted.  You didn’t have to not move because you had a guy behind you that you had to rely on making your decision on what he had to do also.  We had more control as drivers today.

Look at the history of this race.  They always crash here.  Go to Talladega, they crash cars there.  It’s a yard sale every time we go to a restrictor plate track.  I don’t know what you guys want.  Everybody complained about the two-car stuff.  Now we got this today, and it’s better.  We’re telling you it’s better.  You guys are like, Is it going to be that bad next week?

It’s not that bad.  It’s the Bud Shootout.  Everybody pushes the envelope.  Everybody tries to see what that limit is, what that boundary is.  When it comes to Sunday, you have to race 500 miles, you have to make it last till the end.  It’s not that they’re not conscious of the fact you have to make it to lap 75 tonight, but you have the flexibility of not worrying about points standings and not worrying about the 500 title, losing it if you make a mistake tonight.

The competition is so tight, you have to try things tonight.  If you don’t, somebody else is and they’re going to learn from it whether it’s right, wrong or indifferent.  You had to be aggressive tonight and you had to see what you can get away with.  You have to try things.  It’s a great opportunity for trial and error.

As you saw tonight, it worked out sometimes and it didn’t work out a lot of times.  The guys that crashed, it didn’t work out, there’s something they took away from it and said, That didn’t work out so well.  Just like last night when I crashed Kurt, that wasn’t even close to what I had in mind for practice, but that’s what happened.  It’s part of the trial and error process.  You have to go through that.

43 cars can win this race a week from tomorrow.  If you don’t push yourself into figuring out what you can or can’t do, I would rather do it with my Shootout car than I would with my 500 car.

Q.  I don’t know if either one of you saw the two times Kyle nearly got sideways.

TONY STEWART:  ‘Nearly got sideways’?

Q.  How many drivers in the field might have saw that and how amazed were you?

TONY STEWART:  I was right behind him when he had the deal in one and two.  He had to catch it three times before he saved it.  You get 3400 pounds moving like that, to catch it once was pretty big, to get away from it and catch it again was big, and the third time was big.  That’s three big moments in one corner and he never quit driving.  There’s a lot of guys that wouldn’t have caught that.

He did a fantastic job with that save.  I’m sitting there and the green is still out.  I’m like, Man, that’s the coolest save I’ve seen in a long time.  It was big and it hurt us all at the time, but that was a pretty big moment.  Pretty cool to see somebody that went through two big moments like that come out and win the race still.

Q.  Let’s forget about the comparative degrees of craziness, it’s pretty rare when you go to the last lap and two guys are there and there’s not several nearby to worry about.  Having seen that, this is a matter of a few feet.  Who has the edge there?  You said you had a little room and almost did it.  Is that a pretty even thing or would you rather have been behind?  Where would you rather be there?

TONY STEWART:  First, I was just happy that I was in the pairing at the end, to be up there.  But I think history shows that you want to be that second guy I think in all reality.  Especially here, it just seems like for some reason you can make that move here.  Talladega for some reason, it seems like you make the move, the start/finish line being further around the tri-oval, almost seems like it’s too early when you make it.  It just seems like that second spot is kind of the one you want to be in.

I’m not ruling out that you can’t win it from being that lead car.  You got to plan ahead for it.  As soon as we came off of turn two, I was already thinking about it.  I knew how much of a gap we had, the third and fourth.  Had that flexibility to do that without us getting freight-trained.  You knew it was coming; it was just a matter of what to do to guard against it.  Guys are figuring out what to do to get by, now you have to figure out what to do to not let them get by you.

Q.  Tony, with what you saw for 78 laps, did you expect the end to come down to a two-car tandem as it did?

TONY STEWART:  Yeah, I think so.  I think it’s realistic that that’s what you’ll have at the 500, that it will come down to that.  The good news is we’re not going to have to do it for the entire day, all 500 miles.  You’re not going to have to worry about, Man, if I don’t have a partner, you’re going to be in big trouble.  I would say it’s a pretty safe bet.  No guarantee it’s going to have to come down to that.  Especially if it’s a lot warmer conditions, I think it will be harder to do that.  But I think that’s a good possibility that that’s the way it will come down to it.  Maybe even the qualifying races, that’s what it will come down to.

Q.  How careful do you have to be in terms of pushing people and working in the draft?

MARCOS AMBROSE:  It’s a blur, to be honest with you.  I’m driving the Stanley car with one lap to go thinking I’m going to win the race.  I get freight trained.  There’s a lot to learn out there.  There’s people that you like to run with, you try to find them before the end.

It was thinned out a lot before the end of the race.  I looked around and there were probably 10 cars left that could run.  We missed a lot out there.  A lot of incidents and accidents.  Pleased to have made it to the end really.

Like Tony said, it’s way better this way.  I mean, it’s much better racing.  We’re more in control, even though it doesn’t look like it.  We’re controlling our own destiny, like I said earlier.  We’re going to push the car to the end, we all know that.  We have to manage the temperatures out.  I think NASCAR has done a great job of allowing the drivers to get back to racing.

Q.  Tony, the accidents tonight appeared to all have been caused by a guy in the back hitting a guy in the front.  Is there anything NASCAR can do with the shark fin of the spoiler to alleviate it or is it up to the drivers?

TONY STEWART:  I think it’s in the drivers’ hands.  Everybody, people that didn’t even run the Shootout tonight, will watch and saw better than we did behind the wheel how the scenarios played out in each one of those accidents.

I think that’s kind of to a certain degree what NASCAR had in mind when they came up with this package, was to put the decision in our hands.  You don’t want to make it obvious that we have that opportunity to do it.  We’re all thinking twice of do we want to put ourselves in that position so it makes that guy that has that opportunity to push to think twice about is that the right time and do I want to take that risk at this point of the race.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing.  I kind of like us having the decision of whether we want to put ourselves in that position or not.  I think everybody will look at that and determine at what stage of the race that’s going to be an important decision for them to make.

Q.  Tony, do drivers almost have to get acclimated to pack racing?  Kevin Harvick said there was too much of guys hitting in the left front.  Is there going to be an adjustment back to this style of racing because there was so little of it the last year?

TONY STEWART:  I don’t think so.  I think people, especially guys at this level, pick up on it pretty quick.  Like I said, even the drivers that didn’t run tonight will have learned a lot even though they didn’t get to be in the race.

I think the fact that we got practice on Wednesday, then the qualifying race on Thursday, that is a lot of practice to sort it out and figure it out.  I don’t think it will be that big of a drama for everybody to get used to it again.

It’s no different driving on the interstate and driving on city streets.  Two different styles of driving, but you’re still driving.  It’s not that big a deal.

Q.  Tony, this is so dramatically different to last year.  Is this a field like we had two, three years ago at Talladega or Daytona or is it still different because the packages are different?

TONY STEWART:  No, I think it’s very similar to what we had two, three years ago.  Probably three, four years ago in all reality because I think we already switched over.  But I think it is very, very similar to that.

You still sit there and you try to figure out, like being on the freeway in rush hour, which lane is moving and whether you want to switch over.  I was the best at switching over and that line stopping all of a sudden, switching over, seemed like that line stopped.  It’s still kind of back to figuring out, like a chess match, sitting there, who can hang on and not get blocked when they’re pushing a two-car deal through there again.  It’s definitely a lot better deal.

Q.  Do you feel like the new rules are going to reward those drivers, the guys with more skills, looser cars?  Do you think those guys with that extra bit of talent are going to be rewarded with this style of racing?

MARCOS AMBROSE:  From my seat, it looks like everyone has a lot of talent out there.  You got to have great cars and you got to have a bit of luck and you have to manage your race.  It’s a combination of all three.

KERRY THARP:  Tony and Marcos, thank you so much.  Great show tonight.  Can’t wait for the rest of Speedweeks.